This paper seeks to discover the level and spread of bank efficiency in the EU, which in the light of the current and expected increase in competition in Europe is of vital importance for welfare- related public policy toward market structure and conduct. In particular, this study focuses on...

The proposed risk sensitive minimum requirements of the new Basel capital accord have raised concerns about possible (acceleration of) procyclical behaviour of banking, which might threaten macroeconomic stability. This paper analyses the interaction between business cycles and bank behaviour...

Measures of concentration and competition are of vital importance for welfare-related public policy toward market structure and conduct in the banking industry. Theoretical characteristics of ten market concentration measures are discussed and numerical examples illustrate differences and...

The proposed risk sensitive minimum requirements of the new Basel Capital Accord have raised concerns about possible (acceleration of) procyclical behaviour of banking, which might threat en macroeconomic stability. This article analyses the interaction between business cycles and banks over the...

This paper analyses the impact of loan market competition on the interest rates applied by euro area banks to loans and deposits during the 1994-2004 period, using a novel measure of competition called the Boone indicator. We find evidence that stronger competition implies significantly lower...

The introduction of the Euro in EMU is enhancing international competition between European banks, forcing banks to become more efficient. Which countries will be effected the most? The stochastic cost frontier approach is used to estimate the X-efficiency of the European banks, and a...

This paper presents empirical evidence on the competitive structure in the banking industry in the EU as a whole as well as in individual EU countries. The study is based on a non-structural estimation technique to evaluate the elasticity of total interest revenues with respect to changes in...

The new Basel Capital Accord will result in more risk sensitive regulatory capital for banks. Likewise, financial conglomerates' internal models will become more important in group-wide supervision. Such models are relatively well developed for market and credit risk but for others, such as...

Bresnahan and Lau developed a model of profit maximising oligopoly banks in order to determine the degree of market power of the average bank. The equilibrium price equation includes a mark up, which is not used at all under perfect competition, partly used under oligopoly or monopolistic...

This paper provides a survey on recent and current developments in the European banking industry. Traditional banking activities have diminished in relative terms, but banks remain the predominant players in the euro area financial system. Economic and monetary integration in the EU has strongly...